Integration of interactive technologies into the methodology of teaching English for special purposes at the Law School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs with an emphasis on the development of communication skills in law enforcement

Abstract

The work is devoted to substantiating and empirically verifying the effectiveness of the system integration of interactive technologies (VR simulations, case-study platforms, interactive Al simulators, LMS analytics) into the methodology of teaching English for special purposes at the Law University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs with an emphasis on the development of professional communication. The relevance is determined by the growth of cross-border interaction between law enforcement agencies and the identified shortage of graduates' readiness for the operational use of specialized English in stressful situations. The purpose of the study is to create and test an ESP learning model that provides advanced formation of terminological accuracy, fluency, and auditory competence in typical service scenarios. A two-semester pedagogical experiment was conducted at the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on groups of cadets comparable in level A2-B1 (control $n=60$, experimental $n=60$) with an equal amount of classroom hours. The control group studied according to the traditional program, while the experimental group worked in an immersive digital environment combining VR cases, branching investigation scenarios, Al dialogues and LMS monitoring tools. The assessment included entrance, intermediate, and final testing, expert role-playing, questionnaires, and statistical data processing using the Student's t-test. At a comparable start, by the middle of the experiment, the groups showed significant differences in the accuracy of legal terminology (+13.44 points), fluency of speech (+14.12) and professional listening (+11.18) in favor of the experimental one. The final integral indicator of communicative competence was 82.64 points in the experimental group versus 61.58 in the control group, with highly significant differences on all scales $(p 0.001)$. A significant increase was noted in professionally oriented speaking (+27.74 points), which reflected the transfer of skills to simulated office situations and a decrease in communicative anxiety. Motivation, engagement, and independent work also increased (8.91 vs. 5.82; 5.38 hours vs. 2.15), confirming the psychological and pedagogical effect of immersive design. Nonlinear dynamics has been revealed: the maximum effect is achieved with a systematic combination of tools, where case study forms a lexical base, Al simulators stabilize structures, and VR accelerates the transition to spontaneous speech. The conclusion is made about the advantages of the integrative model and the prospects for its scaling, including the personalization of trajectories by means of artificial intelligence and the creation of a single departmental digital platform.